MINNESOTA 8, DETROIT 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, September 11.
Batting stars: Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a home run (his ninth) and three RBIs. Corey Koskie was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk. Torii Hunter was 1-for-2 with a double and three RBIs.
Pitching stars: Brad Radke pitched seven innings, giving up one run on three hits and no walks and striking out three. Bob Wells pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Steve Sparks pitched 4.1 scoreless innings of relief, giving up one hit and two walks and striking out two. George Lombard was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fifth. Carlos Pena was 1-for-3 with a home run, his seventeenth.
The game: The Twins jumped on Tigers starter Mark Redman (an ex-Twin, of course) early. Cristian Guzman hit a two-run homer in the first inning to give the Twins a 2-0 lead. They then scored six runs in the second to put the game away. They had men on first and third with two out. Guzman singled in a run. Two walks followed, the latter with the bases loaded to make the score 4-0. Hunter then hit a three-run double and scored on a Doug Mientkiewicz single to make it 8-0. Detroit got on the board when Pena ht a home run in the fifth and Lombard homered leading off the ninth to round out the scoring.
WP: Radke (8-4). LP: Redman (8-15). S: None.
Notes: Matthew LeCroy was the DH, rather than David Ortiz. He was 0-for-2 with two walks.
Tom Prince was the catcher, rather than A. J. Pierzynski. He was 1-for-3 with a walk.
Denny Hocking was at second base, rather than Luis Rivas. He was 1-for-4.
As you may have guessed by now, this was a day game.
It was Radke's second consecutive excellent game. In those two games, he pitched sixteen innings and gave up one run on nine hits and one walk and struck out eight. In those two games, his ERA came down from 5.15 to 4.44.
Redman lasted only 1.2 innings, giving up eight runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two. It was his worst game of the season and was also his last appearance of the season. That leads one to think he may have been injured, but I didn't have time to check that out.
This was one of only two relief appearances for Steve Sparks in 2002. He made thirty starts that season.
Record: The Twins were 85-61, in first place, leading Chicago by fourteen games.